We represent pro-choice organisations that have been working for
women’s right to safe abortion for many years. We believe that abortion should
be available to every woman who requests it, and that the provision of safe,
accessible abortion care is a vital element of health care provision.

The Daily Telegraph's
interpretation of the 1967 Abortion Act is mistaken. The law does not specify
that rape is one of the legal grounds for abortion, but a doctor can provide a
referral for abortion if a pregnancy results from rape. Similarly, abortion on
grounds of sex selection is neither legal nor illegal in itself. (As the Chief Medical Officer explained: “Sex selection is not one of the
lawful grounds for termination. It is illegal for a practitioner to carry
out an abortion for that reason alone, unless the certifying
practitioners consider that an abortion was justified in relation to at least
one of the section 1(1) grounds.”)**

Under the 1967 Abortion Act, it is the effect of the
pregnancy on a woman’s health, mental health and life that must be taken into
account to determine whether or not she has grounds for abortion. Doctors are
not given a shopping list of specific grounds for which abortion is allowed or
not allowed. Rather, the law gives doctors the responsibility to decide whether
the risk of continuing the pregnancy to the woman’s health and mental health is
greater than if the pregnancy were terminated.

In making this judgement, doctors are directed by the law to
take into account the woman’s personal circumstances. These include, for
example, her age, her being unemployed or on low pay, or trying to complete her
education, or being single, or having other small children to care for, or
feeling strongly that she simply cannot cope with a baby (or another baby) at
this particular time because of the negative impact it would have on her life,
or because she has fears about the outcome and/or life chances of the child if
it were born. The law further allows doctors to authorise an abortion if there
is a risk to the woman’s existing children of continuing the pregnancy, or if
there is a risk of serious abnormality in the fetus if the pregnancy were to go
to term.

The 1967 Abortion Act gave doctors the responsibility for
authorising abortions in the belief that women could not be trusted to take this
decision for themselves. Yet today, it is clear that women who have babies and
women who have abortions are the same women. Today, most doctors and most
people recognise that women themselves do know what is best for their own lives
and do take responsible decisions. Hence, most doctors are willing to provide
an abortion referral for a woman if she requests it because they understand
that continuing an unwanted pregnancy is not good for women or their children, and
will almost always cause a woman greater distress than having an abortion.

We believe the 1967 Act is outdated because it puts the onus on
doctors to be gatekeepers, rather than providing women with the right to decide
what is best for their own lives. We think that abortion should be available on
a woman’s request, and not be governed by criminal statute at all.

We are also opposed to gender discrimination, but sex
selective abortion is not gender discrimination. Gender discrimination applies only
to living people. A fetus does not have rights in the same way as a living
person does, and therefore cannot be said to suffer from discrimination. Gender
discrimination has its roots in economic, political, social and religious life;
sex selective abortion may be one of the consequences of gender discrimination,
but it is not a cause of gender discrimination.

The ‘investigation’ reported by the Daily Telegraph was carried out by unidentified persons in the
context of concerted attempts by anti-abortion politicians and anti-abortion
activists to discredit and frighten abortion providers by characterising them as
unprofessional, greedy and wicked. Yet no evidence exists to support this
proposition. Hence, they have stooped to using methods that are closer to
entrapment than to any semblance of legitimate investigative journalism.

These methods are highly questionable if not downright
unethical. In a video taken without the doctor’s knowledge or consent, a short
segment of which was screened on ITV’s Granada Regional
News on 23 February, a young doctor says to the bogus patient in front of
her: “If you want a termination, you want a termination. That’s my job. That’s
all. I don’t ask questions,” while the patient tries to insist on divulging her
bogus reasons. This is not evidence of illegal behaviour on the doctor’s part. That
this doctor has since been suspended and the police asked to investigate her
and others is a travesty of justice.

We would have hoped that pro-choice politicians would stand
up for abortion providers, and maybe some still will. However, initial reactions
have been hasty and heavy-handed, betraying underlying anti-abortion sentiments.
Andrew
Lansley, the Health Secretary, who otherwise claims he wants doctors to be
in charge of all our health care services, said that doctors would face the
“full force” of the law if they break the 1967 Abortion Act. This is hard to
swallow, especially considering that many of us hadn’t even been born the last
time a doctor had to face the full force of the law in relation to illegal
abortion. The Health Secretary should know better than most that the 1967 Abortion
Act was formulated precisely to allow doctors to exercise their professional
judgement. It is shocking that he would threaten them with prosecution for doing
so on such flimsy evidence.

Some politicians, Nadine Dorries, for example, would dearly
love to turn the clock back. She must be delighted that the Daily Telegraph has boosted her attempts
as a woman to curtail other women’s rights. In her blog
on Conservative Home, she went one better than Andrew Lansley and threatened
doctors not only with prosecution but with being struck off the medical
register. She even mentioned life imprisonment, which is ludicrous, but
intimidating nonetheless.

The vast majority of heterosexually active people of
reproductive age are currently using a method of contraception to the best of
their ability, but one in three women in Britain will have an abortion in her
lifetime. We will stand up for doctors and other health professionals who support
and are willing to provide safe abortion services. We applaud their commitment
in the face of unwarranted harassment and condemnation. Even though the public
are periodically showered with disinformation on abortion, every poll and every
public debate show that most people in Britain are aware of and support the right
to use contraception and the right of women to seek abortion when pregnancy is
unwanted. We call on everyone who supports family planning, including safe
abortion, to express their appreciation for the health professionals who
provide them.